It’s not Just Scotland – Britain is no Longer a Free Country
We look over the border to Scotland with a sense of alarm and disgust at the extreme censorship now being imposed via the Hate Crime Act. But speech is already scarcely freer in England, says Ella Whelan in the Telegraph. Here’s an excerpt.
The bizarre goings on north of the border have been amusing to watch. Scotland’s new Hate Crime Act played out like an April fools with no end. Police Scotland have been inundated – about 60 reports an hour – with thousands complaining of alleged hate crimes committed by J.K. Rowling and the First Minister himself. Someone even made a complaint in Siobhian Brown’s name, Yousaf’s Minister for Victims and Community, leading her to suggest that her Government’s bill had caused “hysteria”.
It’s easy to point the finger at attacks on freedom of speech going on elsewhere. Ireland is similarly in danger of becoming a basket case for free speech. But those of us in England and Wales shouldn’t get complacent.
Given the slew of censorious legislation passed in the last few years, it was perhaps unwise for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to castigate his Scottish counterparts. He’s right that England has “a proud tradition of free speech”, but that tradition, fought for by the likes of Leveller Freeborn John, has always been contested. From the days of heresy and treason to modern concepts of ‘offence’, freedom of speech has never been absolute – in fact, it’s always been in peril.
Scotland certainly didn’t invent the idea of making ‘hate’ an aggravating factor in the criminal law. In 2022-2023, 145,214 offences were recorded by the police in England and Wales “where one or more of the centrally monitored hate crime strands were deemed to be a motivating factor” – a steady increase year on year.
And we don’t just record hate crimes, but “non-crime hate incidents”. This tricky label is for those hate crimes where no criminal act has actually taken place – a means for snitches to get the police attention they require with nothing actually being done about it. More than 6,489 non-crime hate incidents were logged between June and November last year in England and Wales.
When she was Home Secretary, a speech made by Amber Rudd was reported as a “hate crime incident” by a professor at Oxford University. Far from the legal maxim “everything which is not forbidden is allowed”, we now seem to live by the rule that everything you dislike can be illegal – if you complain loudly enough.
Does Sunak know the laws on his own country’s statute books? After tweeting in celebration at the death of national treasure Captain Tom Moore, Joseph Kelly was arrested under Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003. Under this legislation, expressing an opinion of a “grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character” can see you put behind bars. Sure, tweeting “burn auld fella, buuuuurn” wasn’t very nice, but should it be illegal?
The Online Safety Act, passed last year, effectively appoints unaccountable Silicon Valley millionaires to decide what we are and aren’t allowed to say online. Worse still, it emboldens Ofcom to police what is acceptable discourse online. And I haven’t even got to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act, which bans protest that’s too “noisy”.
Worth reading in full.
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“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” CS Lewis.
The Blair Inheritance , in Wales , a hypocritical Puritan and in Scotland , the hysterical Chapati ! We made a mockery of the Last Major Government , but they were the last honest Government !
Hardly. They were never honest about the tyrannical EU and its political ambitions to become the EUSSR super-state. Major was a Europhile and joined in the ‘Brexit is doom’ lies.
We’re still in thrall to the ECJ, ECHR and other meddling agreements engineered by Bliar & Gormless Brown.
None of the Uniparty clowns have ever been honest about anything. They still spout about ‘democracy’ as if that were a real thing.
‘Conservatives’ conserve nothing. ‘Labour’ despises the working class. The ‘Liberal Democrats’ are illiberal, undemocratic wokes.
Lack of free speech has been a fact in this country for at least 10 – 15 years so what’s occurring now is nothing more than the manifestation of an issue which has been plaguing our society for some considerable time. I remember when I worked in the Civil Service how carefully we had to self-regulate our speech. Crikey, conversations about Brexit had to be undertaken at a whisper. During a World Cup football tournament I was warned that I could not display an England flag on my car and to my great shame I complied.
The author is correct and self-regulation of speech is now a fact to some degree. Heaven forbid I utter some truths about the C1984 or current immigration when I am working amongst my wokey Walling associates.
It is great to hear about the stuff that many of have suspected eg, not being allowed to discuss Brexit. I presume you would be allowed to discuss it if you wanted to stay in the EU though. Or am I wrong? But not being able to display a Union Jack really is taking the pure p..s. ————-We thought this silencing of opinions not approved by government only happened in communist countries, but people maybe need to start waking up to the fact that all of these terms like “Progressive” “Inclusive” etc are really just commies using different words for their communism because they know communism is a hard sell.
Agree, V. In fact anything that has the phrase ‘for the good of the community’ or similar words must be viewed with great suspicion. The elites have spent hundreds of years trying to dream up ways to control large populations and communism was their best attempt but as you say a ‘hard sell’ so they dress it up differently but the goals remain the same. It’s genius really. Evil genius.
Unfortunately, those who promote these terrible laws are adept at using the Motte-and-Bailey fallacy to their advantage. We argue for free speech and they will say, “So you think it’s OK for people to say x”, where x is some egregious call to exterminate people, for example. We say, “No, of course not” and end up with people having their collars felt because they’ve used a hurty word.
I usually just say yes!
If someone wants to exterminate people, it’s better that we know about it.
While it might not be OK ie. morally acceptable to call for extermination it surely ought not to be illegal as it doesn’t constitute a direct and immediate threat to someone’s safety. Once you concede that such speech should be illegal you’re accepting censorship without end.
The kind of scenario I was thinking of was if some leader of a fringe party or group called for their members to rise up and murder all the people in a given group, so yes, direct and immediate threat to safety. I am not sure that people should be permitted to do that.
If the leader of a party called on their members to rise up and murder people in another group, that would be a clear incitement to violence and against UK law. (Hamas do it all the time which is why they’re proscribed as a terrorist organisation, though you wouldn’t guess it by recent events.)
There’s a huge difference between an individual saying something without any means or power to carry it out (blowing off steam) and an organisation with followers prepared to carry out the orders of a leader.
The right to free speech of individuals is a human right not to be interfered with except in an oppressive police state. Are we in a police state? The Scots certainly are.
I think we are violently agreeing with each other. My original point was that incitement to violence is used by those who wish to curtail our free speech as the Motte they can retreat to when we complain about how our rights are eroded.
Does anyone think this ‘Hate Crime Act’ nonsense would have gone through if Salmond was still in charge? I can’t actually remember what he and his policies were like, it was so long ago now, but he is white and male, and this ridiculous ‘Hate Monster’ cringefest campaign certainly seems to be singling out the white men of Scotland, even before these Clown World unjust laws were put into place. I can see Sturgeon being cool with it, what with how she was a fan of plonking men in women’s prisons etc, and how Nazified she was during the Scamdemic years. Is the fact that Yousaf is a Muslim just a coincidence and completely unrelated? But then the country’s top brass are just too damn white as far as he’s concerned. Answers on a postcard please…But for now, here’s our own Roger Watson on the case; ”Police Scotland have made it clear whom they will be targeting in their campaign, which seems itself akin to a campaign of hate. According to the ‘Hate Monster’—a cartoon character which drew so much ridicule from the people of Scotland that it was downplayed within days of first appearing but which is being used to… Read more »
Well I am not bloody surprised, they’re a complete joke! 😮
”BREAKING NEWS; Police Chief of>Scotland has been forced to make a record no of Apologies after facing Multiple Complaints under new controversial ‘Hate Laws’ introduced by Scotlands First Minister Humza Yousaf; The Chief has Now booked off Duty>Stress”
https://twitter.com/NormanBrennan/status/1775571855530688522
Hilarious if this is true!
It is hilarious, but it’s not true, and is not meant to be true, it’s an old comedy sketch.
“ Thus, Police Scotland, presumably at the behest of the Scottish government, have shown their hand early”……That is why when JKR said she would repeat anything involving trans was a good move, and this is from someone that is not her greatest fan on other matters.
Salmond was a different kind of asshole, but an asshole nonetheless. —I see on the front of todays Express an article saying that 48,000 supporters at this weekends Rangers Celtic game maybe at risk of arrest for “Hate Crimes”. —-Who do these morality police in the silly SNP think they are, sitting in their little castles on top of the moral high ground?
A useful warning. However …
I would appreciate expert advice on practical, simple steps to mitigate against such state spying.
More generally, the DS is very helpful at exposing these freedom grabs, but might I suggest they aren’t much help unless we know how to respond?
There are many more of us than ‘them’. The blob is terrified we’ll mobilise but we desperately require direction, organisation.
Please spell it out.
No point shouting ‘fire’ if we don’t know where the exits are.
Bannon’s War Room is a good example. Marmite in nature, but for every issue his watchers know who to follow, how to follow, practicable first sfeps.
Depends on your age. If you do not wish to engage with the woke then put yourself into a wheelchair or dress up as an oldie with grey wig and you will be ignored wherever you go.
I am waiting to see what happens to the success rate in solving real crime in Scotland if the police are spending all this time already dealing with so called hate crimes. Being of mixed origin I got a lot of taunting at school, being called a wog, black man (to the tune of the Batman TV series) etc. it wasn’t hate. It was the herd picking on an outsider. What to do? Laugh with them, and get on with it. It doesn’t matter what the difference is; any difference will do. You should read the jokes that Parsis make about Gujeratis.
The interpretation of the words and how they are used is important for not all ‘hate speech’ is an incitement to violence or abuse. In English, people use the word ‘hate’ all the time. It is part of the vernacular but it doesn’t mean that those who use it actually really ‘hate’ or want to cause harm to others. In fact, most people, the majority I would say, wouldn’t hurt a fly. So Police Scotland are now going to be swamped with NCHIs while the real criminals will probably breathe a sigh of relief. It will be unworkable – imagine the vast numbers of incidents being logged and all that police time focused on hurty words. It’s ridiculous.
All this does is expand and grow the Offence Taking Industry. ——–The cretinous goons at the SNP care not a jot about your house being burgled, they only care that no one says anything that might undermine their absurd policies on just about everything.
First thing we need to do is abolish Ofcom, and not allow anything to replace it, especially something unelected.